Above: Rebecca Ferguson and Tom Cruise in Mr. McQuarrie's new film. Photo ©Paramount Pictures
Like a dagger on two legs, Tom
Cruise runs into the first scene of “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.” The scene is set on an airfield, where lush
green grasses contrast with Mr. Cruise’s neat black suit as he appears out of
nowhere, just in time to leap aboard a jet plane and, as he has done in
numerous trailers and promotional videos, dangle off the aircraft as it rises
into a punishing gust.
“Rogue Nation” is packed with such flights of fancy. That does not make it an especially good
film, but it doesn’t make it a bad one either.
Pre-Griffith filmmakers, after all, were proponents of “the cinema of
attractions,” believing that gasp-worthy images were a highbrow art of their
own that didn’t demand a sophisticated story.
Glimpsed in this light, “Rogue Nation,” can almost mask its identity as
a crude cash grab.
“Rogue Nation” features several of the “Mission” saga’s familiar
spunky spies. Jeremy Renner is on hand
as the deadpan Brandt; Simon Pegg skitters about as the ferrety tech head
Benji; and Mr. Cruise’s teeth-bared superspy Ethan Hunt remains in the
spotlight, punching, racing, and roaring.
Here, he reunites with the rest of the players to beat up on “the
syndicate,” a cabal of nasty agents whose generic motives invite the kind nonsensical
blather about betrayal and revenge that twenty-first century espionage
thrillers live, die, and profit from.
It is perhaps a little too easy to be cynical about these
kinds of formulaic summer entertainments.
After all, there is a certain kind of beauty to Mr. McQuarrie’s
modulation of action and suspense. Whereas
most blockbuster directors pummel us with explosive debris, Mr. McQuarrie handles
his movie with sublime finesse, especially in a remarkably coherent chase
across Morocco (where Mr. Cruise’s knee practically scrapes the highway as he
takes his motorcycle through a painfully tight turn).
In that moment, “Rogue Nation” leaps toward the ring of famous
films whose energy was crystallized by adrenaline-spitting car chases—masterworks
of fender-bending like “The Bourne Identity,” “Drive,” and “Mad Max: Fury
Road.” But in those films, violence and
action were always an expression of emotion, of a man or woman’s desperation to
live, not just quell another doomsday scenario.
“Rogue Nation” is far more sedate. True, the film tries to jolt Ethan by killing
off one of his female contacts right after the credits, but at the end of the day,
her death is just fuel to get him on to the next mission.
This movie was breathtakingly fun. Tom Cruise did not disappoint in the 5th installment. Knowing that he also does his own stunts made the movie that more fun. the scenes were perfect, action intense and chemistry volatile!
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I couldn't agree more with your assessment of this movie. Although technically well crafted in terms of the action and stunt work, I honestly think I would rather watch Mission: Impossible 2. Why? Because at least you can laugh at that movie while still enjoying some of the over the top action. With Rogue: Nation, we are simply going through the motions while deceptively giving the perception that this is a great action movie when there is really hardly anything new to offer in terms of the story or, frankly, in the characters or the performances. Really pay attention to the performances in Rogue Nation if you care to: great actors like Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin are reduced to simply speaking their lines with no real conviction at all. Compare this with the J. J. Abrams directed Mission: Impossible 3: although certainly not a perfect film in its own right, you only have to watch the very first scene in order to tell that there is actual acting on display here and that there is an emotional core to the film. Not so with Rogue Nation, and you are indeed right that this is nothing more than a cash grab/filler movie that I would argue has everyone fooled.
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